Fall 2014 - Vol. 11, Issue 4

"DEFINE ME"

 

Poetry is writ;

Soft as the sky, static-charged with

Independent emotions dancing livewire steps

Through sunset slick veins.

And here is the poet, pen-stained

And naked in her thoughts. She has planted

A garden in her armchair;

It is time to harvest

 

 

"DECAY"

 

There were hours before

the clock grew tired of routine,

hung it's hat on the doorknob, folded its arms

to lay down, fetal-like,

swept under fraying corners of the carpet:

 

Thoughts, they are peeled as scabs

from the Bottom of My Mind,

the Back of My Heart,

to be shuffled into the rest of the deck

And shredded--Lingchi by paper cut.

 

I remember at random intervals

triggered by simple, minimalistic pettiness:

bitter tinged whiskey smelling like summer,

the creak slam of lazy-hinged storm doors,

unshakable sea-salt sweetness grinding down between bicuspids--

​

A swollen tongue to a cavity-turned-crater,

if only as a stark reminder that the Decay

is spreading.